


Something Old, Something New

by catchmeifyoucreon



Series: Supernatural Shorts [8]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angels, Blasphemy, Canon Compliant, Demons, During Canon, F/F, Religious Imagery & Symbolism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-03
Updated: 2018-09-03
Packaged: 2019-07-06 14:48:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15888210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catchmeifyoucreon/pseuds/catchmeifyoucreon
Summary: Anna considers Ruby, who's not quite what a born-again angel might expect from a demon.





	Something Old, Something New

**Author's Note:**

> This is a crosspost, with minor edits, from my Tumblr. You can find the original post [here](http://nyebevans.tumblr.com/post/53220320223/annaby-for-annaweek-suggested-by-youfelinedevil).

There’s something there, in the empty shadowed hallways of bone and sinew. Even if Anna can't work out precisely what it means, Ruby’s face holds something that keeps her looking. Something piercing, simultaneously real and unreal in its momentous, fascinating angles. It reminds Anna of a cathedral she visited once or twice in a foreign city: a high sloping roof and a dirge that opens your soul to pain. Multitudes live in Ruby’s face. It’s almost a profane act to look upon it, almost like looking at Jesus splayed out on the cross. Almost. Ruby is a demon. She is the one who profanes God, by her very existence.

And yet – Ruby’s assumed face has a kind smile. If Anna blinks past her holy revulsion, Ruby’s real face could be approximating a smile, too. Grey scuplted lines swooping upwards in an arms-out gesture to the heavens.

“Were you religious when you, when you, you were…” Anna falters on the word that trips, daring, along the knife edge of her tongue. Ruby stares, folds arms that aren’t her own. Arms that she has made her own.

“When I was alive?”

Anna nods, wary. Ruby’s faces aren’t smiling now.

“Why, you want me to get down on my knees and pray with you? Maybe I could give you the last rites before the angels come and chop you into little bits and then put you back together for more.  _God_.”

Anna stills, hearing that name snarled like the worst type of profanity. She feels a lump in her throat which forces its way upwards and breaks through her lips as a wild giggle. It sounds out in the cabin like a whip crack through the thick air, and Ruby stiffens, lips whitening as her teeth press down against flesh.

Then, when Anna is sure she might as well kiss her life goodbye and be done with it, Ruby throws her head back and lets loose a wild raucous sound, teeth gleaming in the dim light of the cabin.

_Laughter._

Her real face seems to catch up with her mask for one sublime, ecstatic instant that splits Anna down the centre and forgets to stitch her back up again. She sways, blinking furiously in the aftermath. Ruby is staring at her again, but this time the kinder smile is back, her eyes softening even as the face below the surface strains at its confines.

“Sister, you better sit down before you keel over,” Ruby says. “Not every day something like this happens to a girl.”

Anna expects the touch against her elbow to send her into a paroxysm of – something – but it’s just skin. She lets Ruby guide her to the bed and sit her down, feeling limp against the weight of the day, pressing down on her shoulders. Or maybe it’s Ruby who’s pressing on her shoulders. Not a weight at all, really. More like an anchor holding her in place. Anna’s eyes are growing too heavy for her to hold them open, and Ruby’s faces are smiling down, like a hideously beautiful shield from the heavens themselves.

“It’s okay,” she’s saying. “It’s okay. Rest now.”

Anna lets sleep claim her, with Ruby’s eyes imprinted on the underside of her lids. When she wakes up, Ruby is still there, curled up on the opposite side of the couch with an expression that speaks of far-gone years that make Anna yearn for – for  _something_ she can't name, not yet. Ruby’s not like the other demons.

She’s not like anyone else Anna has ever met.


End file.
